A Great Memory From Christmas 1964
During the past week, I found myself thinking about some of those great Christmas memories stored in my personal memory bank. There’s some great ones to choose from but as the week progressed I found myself transfixed on Christmas 1964. I was in the 4th grade back then at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School in Ridgewood, NJ. Christmas fell on a Friday that year and my parents had recently purchased their first record player, a gray Westinghouse model that resembled a briefcase that could be easily carried around anywhere. My dad just loved playing his favorite records on that device, none more frequently than the big band sound of the Lester Lanin Orchestra and even some old Mitch Miller records.
The Saturday night before Christmas that year, Mom and Dad had a big party at our house and Dad had the new record player going all night. My sister, Cathy Ann Toomey and my late brother Dennis and I were told that we could watch TV in Mom and Dad’s bedroom while the party was going on downstairs. As soon as we settled into the bedroom though, we noticed this huge box in the corner of the room. It was the biggest box I had ever seen and it contained lots of Christmas presents, complete with the name tag of the intended recipient. To this day, I am not sure who came up with the idea of opening the presents right then and there but that’s exactly what we proceeded to do. Cathy, Dennis, and I took turns guarding the bedroom door just in case Mom or Dad came up to see how we were doing — BTW, they never once came up haha. One by one, we proceeded to unwrap every present in that big box. Once we reviewed an item, we would rewrap the item and place it back in the big box. I think it took about 2 hours to complete the task that night but we were ecstatic because we now knew every gift that would be under the Christmas tree on Christmas Day.
Fast forward to Christmas Day the following Friday. We had kept our little secret amongst ourselves for what was now 6 days. We got up at 7 am like we always did on Christmas Day and quickly opened up all the presents even though we already knew what each gift was going to be. Soon, it was time for us to go to Mass at Mt. Carmel. So far, so good but then disaster struck. On the way home from Church, Mom was making Dennis and I roar with laughter as she drove the car in zig zag fashion down Irving Street and then over the bridge onto Overbook Road where we lived. My brother Dennis and I would always sit in the back seat encouraging Mom to keep making those sharp zig zag turns while we bounced around in the back seat from one side of the car to the next, and in those days, the cars didn’t have any seat belts. Here was a great Christmas Day in the making and we were topping everything off with the equivalent of a roller coaster ride in my Mom’s 1951 blue Chevy. What better Christmas present could two brothers ever ask for?
As Mom began to pull into the driveway, all of a sudden Dennis said “Hey Mom, can Jackie and I bring the hockey sticks down from the attic? You left them up there?” Mom quickly stopped the car, turning back to Dennis and said “How did you know the hockey sticks were up there in the attic”? I knew in that instant that our cover had been blown. We had been caught red -handed by Mom and there was no way out. You see, we had not only opened all the gifts in that big black box in Mom and Dad’s Room, but Dennis and I had also snuck up to the unfinished attic on our 3rd floor that night and saw the 2 hockey sticks that Mom and Dad had hidden there for us.
It took Mom all of 5 minutes to figure out that her sons were up to something mischievous and soon thereafter we confessed our little secret. It always amazes me that our Mom’s can always figure these kind of things out. As the years have passed, we have always had a good laugh about that Christmas and for me it is an extra special memory because it was one of the many great moments I am so grateful to have had with my older brother before he passed. As we celebrate another great Christmas Holiday, I hope that all of us can feel gratitude for those precious Christmas moments of the past but to also create some new memories that you can cherish forever in all the days yet to come.
Wishing all of my family and friends joyful hope and blessings in the new year, Jack
